The Lil' Farm Hands Activity Center was different back then, when it was sunny and the Fresh Beat Band — a kid-themed sing-along act — was in town. Kids swarmed all over the Great Allentown Fair. For Urmy, the proprietor for the week of an agriculture-themed kid show, business was great. Lines reached around the block and parents had to drag their enthralled kids from the farming games.

Then came Labor Day. Sawdust from the boxes where kids dig for vegetables lay glued to the blacktop beneath puddles. Urmy had to pull down the colored handprints on paper the kids left as art projects. One splayed palm was left by a boy named Rykote, who came all the way from Tokyo, Japan.

"It's sort of a letdown," she said. "We had a great week."

Monday was a wet end to an otherwise fair-weather fair. It hit its peak Thursday night, said Bonnie Brosious, the fair's marketing and talent director, when crowd came out to see country star Jason Aldean and set a fair record for gate receipts. In all, about 49,000 attended the six night shows, more than last year, she said.

On Monday, more than 3,000 people paid to see cars plow into each other on a soggy cinder track during the demolition derby. Enthusiasts like the slop, Brosious explained.

Evening events drew bigger crowds than daylight activities, Brosious said. School began earlier this year for many students, so the fair's daylight hours weren't as successful as they had been in year's past. Vendors tried to compensate by pushing ride start times back from noon to 2 p.m. on the weekdays.

Earlier school years might require more scheduling changes in the future, Brosious said.

"It's a shame," she said. "I wish we wouldn't push [kids] so hard."

Alcohol was new to the fair this year and a hit, Brosious said. Despite a handful of incidents involving intoxicated visitors, Brosious said the bier garden drew praise and might expand next year.

"A lot of people said: 'It's about time,' " Brosious said.

A passing shower Sunday temporarily closed some rides, but otherwise it stayed dry. Then came Monday's daylong drizzle. Fairgoers huddled under umbrellas, sealed themselves in ponchos or kept to the indoor activities. Overhead, loudspeakers crackled with news that the Paul Bunyan Lumberjack show had been canceled.

Rides sat dripping and motionless for most of the day. They started during a mid-afternoon lull in the rain, but when the rainfall began again, the rides stopped running.

It was a repeat of last year, Brosious said. The 2006 fair probably experienced the worst weather in recent years, she said. Then, it rained during five of the fair's seven days.

Bill Morris of Tampa, Fla., waited out the rain in his trailer. As he watched the drops from his front stoop, what looked like a vacuum cleaner hose dropped down from overhead. It grabbed at a garbage can filled with rainwater.

"Shannon!" he yelled. Shannon, his 31-year-old African elephant, pulled her trunk away. She was planning to flip the can to make a mess, Morris explained. That's elephant for "Give me some more hay to munch on."

Morris has owned Shannon since she was 18 months old. The top of her head reached his waist then. On Sunday, she and Cora, a 51-year-old Asian elephant Morris has owned for 49 years, towered over Morris' RV. They stood under an awning waiting for the rain to let up.

Ordinarily, they'd perform. Morris said his show is mostly educational, but there are some tricks involved — sitting on a little stool, for example.

"They could slip and fall," he said. "The fair doesn't want that, and I definitely don't want that."

On warm days at their home — 10 acres in Tampa, Fla. — both pachyderms frolic in the rain. Well, the elephant version of frolicking. They dip their trunks into a puddle and throw water on their backs, Morris explained. Sunday's weather was too chilly, he said.

The rain didn't chase away all comers. Aubeidulla Walli of Breinigsville and his son, 5-year-old Maisum, ambled through the midway under an umbrella before ducking into Urmy's activity center.